PayPal recently concluded their latest marketing campaign: a worldwide trot featuring YouTuber Steve Booker and a cast of adjoining travel vloggers. The campaign chronicles the travels of Booker and company "Pole To Pole" as he attempts to complete the entire journey without spending any cash. Increasingly more travel, adventure (see GoPro's latest creator grant program), tourism, and hospitality brands are seeking out top travel vloggers to execute advertising campaigns featuring the kind of aspirational lifestyle content that travels well across multiple social media platforms.   

Instagram Case Study: PayPal Partners With Travel Vloggers For Epic #PoleToPole Campaign

This case study is part of our ongoing Case Study Series. See video and select campaign examples below.

Goals

• Primary Objective - build and drive brand awareness for PayPal's versatility by partnering with well-followed, popular, and digitally-savvy travel vloggers to reach targeted audiences and users
• Secondary Objective(s) - produce sponsored content alongside top content creators in order to galvanize new adopters from their audiences across multiple social channels

Approach

• Identify and partner with top travel vloggers throughout all segments of the #PoleToPole globe trot
• Authentically showcase vlogger's use of PayPal integrated throughout key events traditionally involving cash
• Cross-promote content throughout multiple social channels including YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and travel blog sites

Results

YouTube kick-off video for PayPal's Pole To Pole Campaign

Why Major Travel & Hospitality Brands Are Sponsoring Travel Vloggers

PayPal's campaign resulted in significant social engagement across multiple platforms with new consumer audiences generated via sponsored travel vlogger content. Travel Vloggers have dedicated audiences who follow and curate their content to discover their latest explorations. For travel and hospitality brands, partnering with content creators benefits all parties including tuned-in audiences.

On Steve Booker's Instagram channel alone, PayPal's sponsored campaign generated close to 265,000 likes and over 1,200 comments. Additionally, PayPal enlisted the social community support of popular Instagram travel channel Passion Passport (444K followers) with adjoining interviews on their blog site.

By sponsoring high-traffic vloggers, photographers, and creators, brands can provide well-curated, experiential content to audiences and potential consumers. In similar fashion to the experience YouTube unboxing videos provide, sponsoring travel vloggers provides brands an opportunity to vicariously demo experiences for a wide variety of audiences planning the nuances of their next adventure.

PayPal's #PoleToPole Campaign Examples From Travel Vloggers

Check out the entire Instagram journey across both PayPal and Steve Booker's Instagram Channel. Additionally, check out Steve Booker's travel vlog channel on YouTube for an eight-part series highlighting checkpoints throughout the adventure. Here are select examples from Booker's journey complete with adjoining content from creator friends in each country:

So happy to finally announce that in the next 2 weeks I will be going on the biggest adventure yet, teaming up with @paypal and traveling from #poletopole I'm so excited to share this with you guys! ✈️🌍

A photo posted by Steve Booker (@stevebooker) on Oct 15, 2015 at 2:21am PDT

Dog sledding in the Arctic, not a bad way to spend a morning. Such an incredible experience! #poletopole

A photo posted by Steve Booker (@stevebooker) on Oct 19, 2015 at 1:06am PDT

There's nothing like reminding yourself how incredible the natural world is. Very grateful to have seen this side of the world. #poletopole

A photo posted by Jake Evans (@javaknees) on Oct 21, 2015 at 2:36am PDT

BERLIN MOMENTS - Stop at famous Oberbaumbrücke before walking to East Side Gallery - always in search for the best graffiti or sport shoes on the top 😅 ... Today on tour with @stevebooker during his #poletopole challenge... I will support Steve and see if it is possible to travel from North to South and pay only with @Paypal . . My fashion moments : @vanessa.pur Snapchat : pureglamtv . . . #berlin #germany #deutschland #berlinstagram #igersberlin #ig_berlin #visit_berlin #train #trainstation #spree #river #stairs #stairway #reflection #reflections #bridge #oberbaumbrücke #streetphotography #pole2pole #streetview #ig_travel #fashionblogger_de #travelgram #berlincity #berlincitygirl // In coorporation with PayPal

A photo posted by Vanessa Pur - pureGLAM.tv (@pureglamtv) on Oct 21, 2015 at 8:43am PDT

It's difficult to imagine an adventure more grand than the one @stevebooker is currently undertaking as he travels from one pole to the other. Steve's journey started a few days ago at the top of the world, in Svalbard, and he now finds himself in mainland Europe as he makes his way south. He took some time to answer a few questions about his adventure, where he's been so far, and paying for all his experiences along the way solely using @paypal. We'll be interviewing Steve throughout his #PoletoPole trip. The first installment is now live on passionpassport.com!

A photo posted by Passion Passport (@passionpassport) on Oct 23, 2015 at 7:00pm PDT

Adventurer @stevebooker continued his trip from Pole to Pole in Europe, as he ventured through Moscow and Berlin to Paris, making his way using only electronic @paypal payments. You can follow Steve's whole trip by exploring the #PoletoPole tag, and stay tuned on PassionPassport.com for more interviews from the road. Photo: @hellopoe

A photo posted by Passion Passport (@passionpassport) on Oct 30, 2015 at 11:24pm PDT

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